Senators Suggests the NSA May Have Illegally Created A National Gun Registry

not sure if this was discussed here, did a bit of a search, found nothing

Quote:

Senators are questioning whether the National Security Agency collected bulk data on more than just Americans’ phone records, such as firearm and book purchases.

A bipartisan group of 26 senators, led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to detail the scope and limits of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities in a letter released Friday.

Color me surprised that a government agency covertly violates our rights and will probably not be sanctioned for it...no wait, no such agency monitor, I didn't mean anything I just said, I really meant I think that no such agency should be able to do whatever it wants. It's for the children after all.

Pass universal background checks they said, it won't lead to a national gun registry they said.

They only said the Attorney General could not "consolidating or centralizing records of gun sales and gun ownership." It doesn't mean the NSA, DHS, ICE, or any other agency could not create the registry. The language also means if they de-centralize the database, it's not violating the letter of the law. States like California already have a registry. If all states have the registry and the AG has access to all of them, it's still not violating the law.

Last edited by mavericksun; 07-10-2013 at 7:04 AM..
Reason: remove DEA which is under DOJ.

The link to the original Senators' letter is here. (The .pdf doesn't allow text copying for some reason.)

The only positive to come out of this may be a dawning realization with civil liberties types that 2A defenders are not paranoid and that they had the correct idea all along. Drop this "common sense" BS and treat rights as rights. Not just 1A, but the entire Bill of Rights. If national intelligence is not all-knowing, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

It would not be all the surprising, though it will probably be denied and lied about until it some how leaks or otherwise comes out and which point Obama will tell us how its completely legal and there is all sorts of checks/balances he can't explain to protect our rights or he will just play dumb and give the "I had no idea! You can't expect me to be responsible for EVERYTHING!"

The NSA is our own Gestapo Police and if they read this, yes I mean it! Spying on American citizens is unconstitutional and violates the 4th amendment! By doing so, they are committing a very big crime and they should be tried for their crimes just like all the rest of the criminals

Realize that just by viewing pages here and then especially posting ups your profile to some degree on govt gun watch lists because IPs are mapped to "gun" sites in order to create profiles.

Now, maybe I'm getting too into that paranoid world but in today's day and age of Big Data, I would bet heavily that this type of data is collected and assembled. Govt officials would say "don't worry - its only meta data." But just the fact that citizens are viewed with suspicion is what is intolerable, in my opinion.

Very easy to make a list of all the item product codes that are firearms-related. Very easy to figure out from descriptions.

Visa already has a huge database of all gun-related buyers.

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I will spit whenever I hear the word Libertarian from now on.

In the 2016 election, Libertarian voters threw the swing states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine to Hillary, for a total of 38 electoral college votes. Hillary would have created a permanent a permanent entitlement class and permanent Democratic control over the US.

Realize that just by viewing pages here and then especially posting ups your profile to some degree on govt gun watch lists because IPs are mapped to "gun" sites in order to create profiles.

Now, maybe I'm getting too into that paranoid world but in today's day and age of Big Data, I would bet heavily that this type of data is collected and assembled. Govt officials would say "don't worry - its only meta data." But just the fact that citizens are viewed with suspicion is what is intolerable, in my opinion.

It's even easier than that these days. Just access one of the tracking cookies from the ad sites and you got plenty of information about who accessed what sites and what they looked at.

"Of the people, by the people" The Constitution is being disregarded every day now and very little is being done about it. They have an inquiry investigation, they lie about it or take the 5th, some lower level guy that was going to retire sort of takes the fall and it all gets swept under the rug. Why wouldn't our Government collect every piece of data on Americans including gun purchases ? I just explained above no one gets in trouble so why not. It would just be some "rogue" low level staffer doing it by mistake (yeah right). As long as the zombies (aka low info voters, 49% and democrats) get there welfare, housing, EBT's and Obamaphones nothing will change. You can't fight against Santa Claus even if he is trampling our Bill of Rights.

Puhleeze. If the government wants to know who owns guns, they won't track the weapons. They'll subpoena the credit card and bank records of everyone who's bought something on CTD, MidwayUSA, Beretta USA's website, and other online dealers. Physical registries of guns are so 1990s.

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The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be.
The more subsidies you have, the less self reliant people will be.
-Lao-Tzu, Tau Te Ching. 479 BCE

The 1911 may have been in wars for 100 years, but Masetro Bartolomeo Beretta was arming the world 400 years before John Browning was ever a wet dream.

They don't even need a subpoena. They already have warantless access to all that info.

The one thing that's on our side is that about half of Americans own guns. A registry of gun owners isn't too meaningful. It's also extremely easy to predict who is a gun owner. How many registered-Republican whites aren't gun owners?

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I will spit whenever I hear the word Libertarian from now on.

In the 2016 election, Libertarian voters threw the swing states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine to Hillary, for a total of 38 electoral college votes. Hillary would have created a permanent a permanent entitlement class and permanent Democratic control over the US.

They don't even need a subpoena. They already have warantless access to all that info.

The one thing that's on our side is that about half of Americans own guns. A registry of gun owners isn't too meaningful. It's also extremely easy to predict who is a gun owner. How many registered-Republican whites aren't gun owners?

Indeed. In fact, for their purposes it would be quite reasonable for them to assume that everyone either owns or has access to a gun.

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"Did I say "republic?" By God, yes, I said "republic!" Long live the glorious republic of the United States of America. Damn democracy. It is a fraudulent term used, often by ignorant persons but no less often by intellectual fakers, to describe an infamous mixture of socialism, miscegenation, graft, confiscation of property and denial of personal rights to individuals whose virtuous principles make them offensive." - Westbrook Pegler

#3. Creates a ton of false flags - filtering of those by additional servers and actual human staff reduces it considerably to that which actually needs to be stored.

Otherwise, no matter how much disk space they have - they'd run out in a matter of days...even a 1000 football fields of NetApps, EMC and IBM disk arrays wouldn't last a week if EVERYTHING were being stored. It's a losing proposition.

What you really are when being monitored is a PROCESS.

As a process you exist in buffers in memory.

So long as you haven't flagged anything - or have a flag request against you - you continue to reside in buffers in memory and as the buffers are filled with streamed data - the buffers are dumped into "/dev/null". Thus for the most part leaving "disk space" alone.

Should a call get stored - it's about 1 Meg for 3 minutes. Almost nothing compared to the disk space they have.

Logs are very low foot print...once again...almost nothing compared to the disk space they have.

MetaData are very low foot print...once again...almost nothing compared to the disk space they have.

Actual files, documents, photos, videos and formatted drawings are another whole ballgame. That's where auto-flagging and requested-flagging have to be fine tuned constantly to make certain they get what they want without wiping out disk space.

This crap has been going on since the 70s - with the files / documents side of it getting the regular updates and increased capacity and processing updates.

And it has gone from "national security" (which was questionable to begin with) to outright patent and business secrets theft, blackmail, and internal spying to interfere with litigation.

And of course, the whole system is protected by certain courts and congressional committees from prying eyes wanting to know what is there and what exactly it is being used for on a case by case basis.

I'll guarantee you this:

They already have a gun registry that is about 80% percent accurate. They already have a registry of people who have bought ammo in the past. They already know where all the expired H1-B's are. They already know where all the illegal aliens are both H1-B and border crosser wise. And they already know where all the gang-bangers are that are actual cartel members.

Which means, they already have the capability to create chaos for US when politically necessary. Everyone has a profile

And I guarantee you the IRS has unrestricted access...

=8-)

There's a big gapping hole in the system - from the analysis side of things - and plays a role in why it is I think Snowden is a phony distraction to hide what Obama and Holder are really using the system for - they're in panic mode in my opinion - they're not trying to find someone - they're trying to find something.

They already have a gun registry that is about 80% percent accurate. They already have a registry of people who have bought ammo in the past.....

=8-)

I disagree.

Its one thing to have raw data. Its another matter entirely to be able to practically use it. I've little doubt that Uncle Sam has a fairly good idea who owns guns in this country. The problem the Feds face is practical application of that data for civil disarmament.

Sure, the Feds know who owns firearms. But what guns? Where are they located? Have the firearms traded hands recently? The Feds need to know who owns what, where , when , and HOW MUCH-and to a precise T. In order for the opposition to use the Law to prosecute us for owning guns, they need a consolidated and accurate data source which can be used in open criminal and civil court as evidence.

That is why the anti's cannot advance their agenda without an open, publicly accepted national gun registry akin to the UK's and England's. There's a vast difference between a shadowy computer intercept saying "PERSON X BOUGHT 2x 9mm Ammunition" and "Person X owns Handgun Make Y, at Address Z."

__________________
The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be.
The more subsidies you have, the less self reliant people will be.
-Lao-Tzu, Tau Te Ching. 479 BCE

The 1911 may have been in wars for 100 years, but Masetro Bartolomeo Beretta was arming the world 400 years before John Browning was ever a wet dream.

The phone meta data on everyone they are storing likely also includes your exact location even while not talking on the phone. Your phone stays in constant communication with the towers, and based on factors such as signal strength to the various towers they have your location.

So they know if you've ever gone to a gun store, gun show, etc.

Also, since Clapper flat out lied in front of congress pre-Snowden about this, why would anyone think he would admit to an illegal gun registry until someone like Snowden drops the proof? He'll just lie again until caught, then claim some BS to weasel out of it. That is what this administration does from the top down.

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